by Amy McNamara
“It’s okay,” he says, parting my hair and pulling my hands away. The annoyance fades from his face, and he traces the edge of my cheek with his finger. “Come on, this is a great party. Really, our first night out.”
He lifts my chin, his mouth hovering over mine softly, lightly, teasing.
Then Nick Bishop pops his head around the corner. Kills the spell.
“Whoops,” he says, spotting us, hands up like we’ve got him at gunpoint. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. Carry on.”
He backs out of the room with a smirk. I decide he’s not cute. I decide I hate him.
Cal’s quiet. His face softens again.
I look at him for a minute. It might actually kill me, how much I like him. I have no idea what I’m doing, pretending like I’m ready for anything like this.
My fingers float over his face, along the bridge of his nose. I breathe him in.
Then we kiss and kiss and kiss.
The night is good and long.
clumsy
MARY AND MICHAEL burst back into the house just in time to see sunrise. They’re trying to be quiet, but Mary wakes us up with her laughter. I’m tangled with Cal on my too-small bed and shaky from little sleep, but happy.
Happy.
We meet them in the kitchen to make Mary’s going-away breakfast while light creeps like a promise over the edge of the Atlantic.
“Michael’s riding down to RISD with me!” Mary beams at us when we join them.
Cal raises his eyebrows at me. Mary looks even happier than usual. If that’s possible.
“Who wants a hangover omelet?” she calls out, moving toward the refrigerator.
Breakfast by Mary. I’m going to miss this.
“Step aside,” Cal says, glancing at Michael. “We’ve got this one down.”
“Yeah, Owen Brothers Special . . .” Michael says, following him to the kitchen.
They put Mary and me on fruit duty—washing and cutting strawberries, juicing oranges—while they pull out the rest.
“What’s the secret ingredient?” Mary inquires sweetly.
“Motherless boys,” Cal says, without missing a beat.
Michael hoots and high-fives Cal. “Black humor first thing in the morning. It’s how I know I’m home.”
“You get good in the kitchen.” Cal laughs into Mary’s surprised face. “That, and more egg whites than yolks.”
“The protein,” Michael says, like that explains it.
They bang through Dad’s kitchen, making short work of peppers, mushrooms, cheese, onions, thawing some bacon Cal pulls out of the freezer. If it weren’t for Michael’s shorter, neater haircut, shoulder to shoulder like that, they could almost be twins.
“So,” I say to Mary, “I never heard my dad come in. Do you think he’s still over there in the studio, asleep on the floor or something?”
She looks at me funny, like it’s a weird question. “He and Zara cut out before you and Cal left,” she says, smiling.
The kettle whistles and she pours the jumping water into the press.
“Oh, coffee goddess, that smells great,” Michael says. Like she’s doing something amazing. He can’t keep his hands to himself. Misses no chance to brush against her in our small kitchen space.
“Dad and Zara?”
I close my eyes for a second while I consider this disorienting information.
“You innocent.” Mary grins and pours four mugs of coffee. Slides me one.
“He’s never once, not since he left, told me about anyone he was seeing.” I look up at her. “I thought he was a lone wolf. Solitary art man.”
“I think it’s been a few years now,” Mary says, pouring cream into her own cup.
“I thought Zara and Lucy were together,” I say, watching silky white whorls form on the surface of her coffee then sink.
This makes Mary laugh.
“You really didn’t know?” She squints at me, the rising sun casting a rosy color on her face. “About your dad and Zara? It’s not like they hide it.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell me?” I say. I’m starting to feel ridiculous, my words sounding, even to me, hideously naïve, blind, clueless.
“You’ve been pretty . . . occupied with your own stuff, I guess. Maybe he didn’t think he had to announce it, that it would just be obvious.” She shrugs.
She blows on her coffee before she sips it. Michael watches, under her spell, like the gesture might undo him. Her silvery fingernails catch the light.
“I think your dad likes to play it kind of loose, though,” she says with a smile.
“Too much information.” I pick up my coffee. Scald my tongue.
“Zara told me he comes to her place, but she doesn’t stay here.”
“Ugh,” I groan, “Thanks for the mental picture.”
Cal laughs. Reaches past me for a potholder.
“Nice double standard,” he says. “You want him to be cool with us, but he can’t have someone of his own?”
He slips a spatula under the perfect round of egg and folds it in half. Bits of cheese in the pan spit and hiss.
“Perfection,” Michael says, eyeing the masterpiece. “Plates, ladies? We’ll be eating soon.”
“I don’t know,” I say, backing away from the heat a bit. “I guess I just haven’t thought of my parents that way.”
It occurs to me that I might be right about my mother not coming for Christmas. She’s seeing someone. Has to be. Why wouldn’t she? Maybe I’ve been blind to everyone else’s lives longer than I thought. I close my eyes a second, try to imagine a man for her. No. She isn’t seeing anyone. Can’t be. She wouldn’t have so much time to worry about my life if she were.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Mary says.
“Not worth that much.”
I pull the bacon off the back griddle and try to soak up some of the grease with paper towels. Sneak a sideways glance at Cal. Pale. He leans against the counter while he tends the eggs. Dark circles under his eyes. I keep my mouth shut. I learned my lesson last night. Still, he makes me want to pull him back to bed. I could handle a lazy day lying around together.
“Which one’s Zara?” Michael asks, watching me watch Cal. He steals a piece of bacon. Mary slaps his hand.
“The one in that sculptural dress—all those little metal moons,” I say. “I don’t know, mid-forties, maybe? Walking around with Theo and Marta.”
Now that I think of it, I saw them together a lot last night. My dad and Zara. After Dad was done making introductions for Mary, he and Zara made the rounds. And my dad looked happy in a way he hasn’t really since I got here. I get that sick feeling again. I don’t deserve any of this. All this attention from everyone else. Their worry. My stupid problems are taking my dad away from this—his life here.
“Oh yeah, what was with that dress?” Michael laughs. “All those metal edges. Looked sharp.”
“I liked it,” I say, a little surprised to find myself feeling defensive about Zara. “It made that little chiming sound when she walked around.”
“I liked it too.” Mary energetically backs me up. “She made that dress, and only the crescent moons were sharp, and she only put a few of those on. I adore Zara. And John, of course. They’re alike,” she says, with a romantic expression on her face. “They might be made for each other.” She shoots a look at Michael, a coy smile, and then glances back at me. “You know?”
Michael shakes his head. “How can you adore him after that thing he said to you?”
Mary stares back at him a minute, her face falling slightly.
“Yeah, that was hard. But he wasn’t trying to be mean. He talks like that. Says what he thinks. And he’s probably right.”
“How about you, Wren?” Michael asks, turning his eyes on me. “Do you buy your dad’s line about what a mistake it is to look out for other people?” He hands Cal a pile of shredded cheese.
“Shut up, Michael,” Cal warns, whisking it into a new bowl of eggs.
“That’s
not what he meant,” Mary says, defending my dad, or me, maybe. “He was just reminding me to watch out—as a woman, I face different standards for how I’m supposed to live. Zara and I talk about that once in a while.”
“I’m just trying to figure out if it’s a family thing,” Michael laughs, like he’s only kidding.
“Who’s hungry?” Cal asks, taking the bacon platter off the back of the stove and thrusting it at Michael.
I try to concentrate on gathering plates, silverware. Cal knocks his shoulder into mine, a comforting gesture. I look up at him. I can’t believe he’s here, with me. That I’m here. With anyone. I feel like I’ve lived years in a few weeks. Makes me happy and uneasy. I know how fast things change.
As if to emphasize that thought, Cal drops a stack of juice glasses onto the kitchen floor. They shatter against the tile. Glass everywhere. Loud. We’re all startled.
“Shit.” Anger flashes across his face. He looks at me. “Sorry, clumsy.”
“We were up all night.” I keep my voice light, give him a quick kiss, and reach for the basket.
Michael crouches near me on the floor, hands me some of the bigger pieces. Mary steps over us and sets the rest of the food out on the table.
“Do you have a dustpan somewhere?” Michael asks, gesturing to the remaining glinting shards.
I point him down the hall to the little closet.
“I don’t see it,” he calls.
I go back to get it for him, but he’s standing right there, dustpan in hand. I’m confused a second. He grabs my arm kind of hard and looks at me intensely. His eyes aren’t warm for me like they were for Mary a second ago.
“I’m watching you,” he hisses, giving my arm a tight squeeze. “Don’t hurt him, however crazy you feel. He really likes you. Whatever you do, don’t mess him up. It took a lot for us to get here. Don’t fuck with him. Please. Not now.”
I’m stunned. Michael drops my arm, like it was something disgusting he touched, takes the broom from my hand, and walks back to the kitchen.
I lean against the wall, heart pounding. Try to breathe. I slip into the bathroom a second. To calm down. My stomach’s in freefall. I splash a little cold water on my face. Look at my reflection. Everything’s changing; I’m disoriented. Michael’s probably right. I’m just going to mess it up, somehow. I don’t know what I’m thinking, getting involved with Cal.
When I come out, they’re at the table, laughing about something. Missed the joke. I avoid Michael’s eyes.
“Bon appétit,” Cal says, when I take my seat.
For a few minutes there’s only the sound of silverware against plates and the murmur of people passing dishes.
“Mmm,” Mary says with a great sigh after a few bites. “What is it about breakfast after staying up all night? I feel like I died and went to heaven.”
Died and went to heaven. Her words wedge themselves in my throat and for a second I’m afraid I’m going to cry. I look down at my napkin. Blink hard.
Things are okay. It’s all okay. I repeat it in my head. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. Time moves forward. I’ll say good-bye to Mary, and it won’t break me. I’ll keep seeing Cal. Keep waking up. Going to work. I look at Michael. He shows no sign of having just torn into me in the hallway. I tell myself I’m lucky to be alive, to be eating with these people I’m starting to love.
it’s
so
still
IT’S QUIET WITHOUT MARY. Too quiet. I don’t mean to, but I catch myself expecting her in the kitchen, pressing some seriously powerful coffee, looking like a Technicolor sunrise. The house is dim without her. Even my father, normally so constant in his orbit, has a slightly deflated appearance. And as fast as everything around us lifted and swelled, suspended in Swap Night glamour, January pushes us ahead again, utilitarian in thick-soled boots. Nick and my dad disappear into the studio, establishing Nick’s fellowship, my dad says.
I run farther every day. Try to forget Michael’s warning. The look on his face. Winter is huge. The sky low and blank and endless. Pressing me down. Making it hard to breathe. If I could find a way to shut it all off again, just for a little while, I’d be okay. Not caught like this, wide open between Cal and nothing.
After Michael leaves, Cal crashes. Not sick, he tells me over and over, just tired. I don’t mind. I’m tired too. Used up. I just want to run and not think, shelve books and not think, sit and not think. On this morning’s run, a dead bird in the snow brings me to my knees. It looked so abandoned—by life, by itself. I’m doing it wrong somehow, failing to take up the new year’s offer of starting over. Because it’s everywhere, working its way into everything—a looping conversation with Patrick where I explain myself. Try. Use words in the hope of making it end differently. I tell him I wished I’d waited until we were somewhere private, at home, in the city, away from cars and drinking and general insanity. I say I wish I’d been a better person, more honest about what I wanted, and sooner, and maybe then I wouldn’t have slept with him again, after I knew we were done, after it was over, for me. I was pregnant—I’d tell him, he’d know—I was really scared that night. On it rolls, useless words while I’m brushing my teeth, while I’m tying my shoes, while I’m running past Mercy House, pretending Mary’s in there, wishing she were, I’m sorry, Patrick, a refrain echoing into nothing. It’s a meaningless exercise, my excuses pathetic, pointless. They fall like snow between us. It’s never going to happen. I have to hold it. Alone. He’ll never know. God, never is so long.
When I finish at the library, I head to Cal’s. He called in sick to his internship. We lie, legs tangled, warm on his couch. While he sleeps, I hold a book like I’m reading and watch him sleep or stare at the water. Or at his face. The winter light turns itself away from us.
My phone buzzes. I answer it fast so it doesn’t wake him.
“Mamie, I hear there’s a boy.”
“Mother,” I whisper, moving Cal’s head carefully off my thigh and crossing the room to an armchair by the bookshelves.
“Darling, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Mom. I can. You’ve been talking to Dad?”
“Marta, of all people. She hasn’t contacted me in years. I had to call you, it sounds like something hopeful? She said you look marvelous, well, that you were on the arm of some young man at your father’s bacchanal?”
“His name’s Cal,” I say as quietly as possible.
“Oh I’m sorry, darling, did I call you while you’re at the library? I thought you’d be done for the day.”
“No,” I whisper. “I’m at his place.” I glance at him on the couch. He looks so relaxed, his arm up over his eyes. Then, before she can ask more questions, “He’s sleeping.”
“Sleeping?” I can hear her brow furrow.
“Not like that, Mom,” I say, flinging a leg over the arm of the chair. “Cal has MS. Some days he has to rest.”
Radio silence.
I reach up and twist one of the diamond studs in my ear.
“Well, I guess it’s good you’ve found someone, some company,” she says, finally, diplomatically. But I can hear it in her voice. Disappointment. This is not how she wants me to spend my time.
I slouch in the chair, press my eyeballs with my fingers.
“I ran into Ms. Gaffin yesterday,” she says, her voice brisk, we’re moving on.
Ms. Gaffin. Bly’s dean of students and my former advisor. My heart hangs in my chest, frozen.
“She asked about you. I told her you were well, living up north with all those artists.” She laughs lightly, but it comes out more like a little tight gasp. “She says Emma’s doing better, playing basketball, blossoming in tenth grade. I thought you’d like to hear that. I know you were fond of her, too.”
Now I need to hang up.
I walk back over to the couch. Curl onto the end of it, make all the murmuring sounds of accord I know my mother’s expecting to hear, whisper something about going to make dinner, and let my phone fall to the floor.
I hold tight to the memory of the dead calm I made inside myself before Cal came along. Look at him again, stretched out long and lovely beside me. Shut my eyes. There’s so little between me and the world.
When he wakes up, Cal stares at me a minute, then asks me where I am. Where I’ve gone. I’m right here, I lie. He pulls me closer.
Later, at home, I can’t sleep. Can’t stay asleep. My eyes fly open in the dead of night from the same dream, almost not a dream even, more like a thought I have that’s so clear and real it wakes me. The car has stopped rolling. Even though I can’t really turn my head, I know Patrick’s dead. An alone feeling. He’s not where he’s supposed to be. I can kind of see his face, but he’s not in it anymore. It’s just his face. Less than that. Less than a picture of a face, even. Without life—it’s the strangest thing I ever saw. I can’t take my eyes off him. All his anger’s gone. Everything. He looks empty. I can’t believe how fast it happened. Then the spreading warmth between my legs, blood creeping up through my shorts, soaking the hem of my tank top. I think it’s then I notice we’re upside down. I’m very calm. It’s so still. The airbags are everywhere between us.
It’s the quiet that wakes me up, after all that noise—metal bending, glass popping, grinding, crunching—it’s sudden, the silence, like a slammed door, the puff of air that knifes out between the wall and the jamb.
It happens every night now. I sit up, heart pounding. Sweating. Sick with it. We’re always going to be together, Patrick and me. Only worse. Because it’s really just me and me. Patrick’s nothing. Words. Images. That’s what it comes down to. I’m left with me. Our angry words hanging on the air like spider webs between branches, invisible until you feel them sticky across your face.
I think about the ocean, great erasing waves.
Then I take a sleeping pill.
mornin’
sunshine
I’M GROGGY from another night of it when I stumble out of my room and find Nick at our table reading the Sunday New York Times, magazine and all. Where’d he get that? He’s drinking what smells like a great, slap-in-the-face cup of coffee.